DADZ KLUBB (NE1 CAN JOIN)

i don't want to think about my dad
as he sits alone in that house in connecticut
burning old receipts
boxes of them
when he doesn't know why he kept them in the first place
and calling me
to ask if i want to keep my dusty, water-warped artwork from third grade
when my brother doesn't come home much
and sleeps through most of thanksgiving day
in the guest room downstairs
because he doesn't want dad to know how late he got in
the landing creaks on the way up

how often does my dad call my grandparents
who are dying an ocean away
and i don't want to think
how bitter bitter bitter my granddad sounds
when he talks about the electricity board
and never talks about why he changed our family name

if the bank forecloses on a man's house
and his wife leaves him finally
and he doesn't have a job
and his son gets ready to go off to college
and his little girl is a grown up who can't remember to phone home
like she's trying to look at the sun
but instead has to look to the side of it
then
what is a man?

"i stopped paying the mortgage last august"
he says in july
i'm screaming
"why didn't you say anything? why do you never say?"
"you're old man owes 60 thou for your schooling"
"there are so many times you could have told me"
but he's the first person i call a month later
to say
"i'm nothing nothing nothing at all"
he knows
"people have been telling you what do to do you whole life"
at 22 minutes
i think it's the longest conversation we've ever had

i hope that house was fucking worth it, you ass